Gears of War: Ultimate Edition

Today I wanted to talk a little bit about Gears of war: Ultimate Edition. Now I know the game came out a few months ago back in August, but I still think its a stellar game worth discussing. Gears of War has always been a console selling video game with its dark storyline, badass characters, and gruesome gunfights. This remake of the original Xbox 360 version has been completely rebuilt from the ground up for Xbox One and looks absolutely fantastic. The new developer for the game, The Coalition (formerly known as Black Tusk) has done a phenomenal job of bringing back the original game while still managing to make it feel fresh and new.

Firstly I just want to point out for the readers and gamers who are unaware, Gears of war: Ultimate Edition is the complete original game experience which also includes the missing DLC campaign chapter that was exclusive to the PC when it was released. Now even though the core game has remained the same, the graphics and animations have been redone and enhanced to add more significance to the gameplay and cutscenes. The new facial animations make the characters feel more real then they have ever been before which gives the game a greater sense of emotion between the characters. The missing campaign chapter was pretty awesome to experience on Xbox One since it was the first time players were able to fight against the giant Brumak enemy. In the end, the story remains the exact same as the original but with a shiny new look and an additional new chapter that made it refreshing to revisit the game.

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GOW: Ultimate Edition’s multiplayer is by far the best and most well balanced in the series (WHEN IT WORKS). The weapons feel powerful and pop with new sound design and updated graphics. But the cherry on top of this awesome package is the flawless 60 frames per second. Having 60 frames a second in Gears makes it feel loose and free when you swing around your camera when aiming at enemies while still maintaining all the insane graphical detail. Now all these improvements make it amazing but there is still the dark side of Gears multiplayer which is severe LAG. At times the multiplayer is hit with bursts of serious lag and this can cause your character to miss accurately placed shots, get caught on walls (while out of cover), being at two places at once, and also getting stuck next to teammates while running. These issues can cause a gamer to blow up in rage because they wind up dying in ridiculous situations that shouldn’t happen over and over and OVER again. Other then this the game feels intense, responsive, and unbelievably satisfying when demolish your opponents. Gears brings you a level of adrenaline and heart pounding moments that you just don’t get in other shooters. On a quick side note I also wanted to point out that I thought it was a fantastic idea to add characters from the previous Gears games into the multiplayer. It adds an extra level of variety that just was not in the original game.

The Coalition did release an update that corrected some of the issues the game had when it first launched, and since then the game does appear to play more smoothly, but lag still happens on occasion. In the end though, the game is truly worth the price of $40. This price tag is also greatly appreciated since some of the previous “remake” or “definitive edition” games were selling for a full $60 and they were the exact same as their original versions with only the prettied up graphics. At this stage of the Xbox One’s life, I am happy that Microsoft is finally bringing some higher quality content to players, and hopefully this trend continues because for a moment there things were getting stale and we really needed it.

Thanks again to all the readers and followers of my blog, please feel free to comment on any of my posts and let me know what you guys think about the games here and any crazy experiences you have had while playing. Also please respect your fellow gamers out there, try your best not to “T-bag” and disrespect each other, it makes it more difficult to enjoy the game on both ends of the spectrum. Have a great Friday!